A man riding a motorcycle packed with explosives rammed his vehicle into a patrol of Afghan and international forces in eastern Afghanistan today, killing at least 11 people, including three international service members and their translator, officials said.

Just over a decade ago, Gemma Smith decided she was going to be "the next Evelyn O’Connell". She has since graduated from Swansea University with a first class honours degree in Egyptology, and is about to start her MA in Ancient Egyptian Culture.

Adherents of a religious sect in western Mexico are physically blocking school teachers from entering their walled community, setting up one of the most high-profile confrontations between religious and civil authorities in Mexico since the 1930s.

The Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has vowed to go ahead with a rally in Pakistan’s tribal areas aimed at highlighting the human cost of US drone strikes despite a purported death threat levelled at him by the Taliban.

Seventy members of an Islamist sect who have been living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight for nearly a decade have been discovered living on the outskirts of the city of Kazan in Russia, local media reported.